Books like Doctor Zhivago
12 books with a reading profile close to Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
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1
The Odyssey of Homer
by Homer
Also deep and contemplative · dense, narrative
Following the conclusion of the Trojan War, Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, begins a decade-long struggle to reach his home.
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2
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative
Set in a fictional Midlands town during the 1830s, the narrative tracks the interconnected lives of Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate.
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3
The God of Small Things
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative
Set in Ayemenem, Kerala, during the late 1960s, the story follows fraternal twins Rahel and Estha as they navigate a rigid social hierarchy.
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4
Vanity Fair
by William Makepeace Thackeray
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the narrative follows Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley as they navigate British high society.
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5
Song of Solomon
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative
Macon "Milkman" Dead III grows up in a wealthy but emotionally stifled Black household in Michigan, isolated from the struggles of his community and the history of his ancestors.
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6
American Pastoral
by Philip Roth
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative
Seymour "Swede" Levov represents the fulfillment of the mid-century American dream as a successful Newark businessman, star athlete, and family man.
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7
Bleak House
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
In nineteenth-century London, the protracted legal battle of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drags through the Court of Chancery, eroding the inheritance and sanity of those caught in its wake.
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8
The Complete Stories
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative
This 1971 collection brings together thirty-one stories set largely in the rural American South.
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9
Sula
Also deep and inward-looking · dense, narrative
In the segregated neighborhood of Medallion, Ohio, Nel Wright and Sula Peace share a girlhood bond that fractures as they enter adulthood.
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10
The Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot, Rosalyn Landor
Also deep and contemplative · narrative, literary
Maggie Tulliver grows up at Dorlcote Mill, torn between her intellectual curiosity and the rigid expectations of her provincial Victorian community.
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11
The Bonfire of the Vanities
by Tom Wolfe
Also deep and thought-provoking · dense, narrative
Bond Market trader Sherman McCoy sees his life as a self-proclaimed Master of the Universe collapse after a wrong turn into the Bronx.
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12
Great Expectations
Also deep and contemplative · narrative, literary
The story follows Pip, an orphan living in the bleak Kentish marshes with his sister and the blacksmith Joe Gargery.
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